An update...

While working on the wastegate did improve things I was still having some issues. I also had a new timing chain put on since mine was a little on the stretched side. That improved things as well.

One symptom that I had been having was that occasionally my engine would die when I let up after being under load -- never at highway speeds though -- like at the top of my steep driveway. On Tuesday the car died in stop and go traffic while the AC was on. It started right back up but it was the same symptom of coming off of a load. I figured that it had to be fuel starvation of some kind.

So, I popped off the shut off actuator/valve and, sure enough, it was not working properly. I had pilfered this one two years ago from a spare injection pump. I still had the old one. The throw on the actuator arm was only half of what it should have been -- it only went down and not up. So my replacement actuator was starving the injection pump. It did shut off the car just fine -- something that the old one had stopped doing. My stop lever never came up to the full open position. The stop lever would also move with RPMs - a little up and down at idle too. It is also possible (or maybe likely) that I did not manage to get the replacement actuator seated correctly with the stop lever which may have compounded things.

Got a new shut off valve and made absolutely sure to get it seated correctly. Car turns off, but more importantly, it drives like it should. Good turbo ramp up and zips right up the hills that it was dogging up a few days ago.

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1987 300TD 231,000
#22, afterglow, plastic fan, euro lights, alternator upgrade, cluster housing update